Claiming "a lot of the gay activists ... were very disappointed" VandeHei ignored substance of DOMA complaint
June 18, 2009 7:38 am ET
From the June 18 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe:
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First, we're all supposed to have equal protection under the law. Why should a minority group enjoy stronger protection than a non-minority group? Why legalize inequity in criminal penalties?
Also, why does it matter what a person was thinking when he committed a crime? Does it matter whether the guy stabbing me hates just me or hates all people like me? Should that violent person be less concerned about his jail sentence just because I'm white/straight/etc.? Is a minority life "worth" more than mine?
Lastly, how can you make hate illegal in a free society? Can we legislate what people are supposed to think?
It comes down to this: If I attack a person for the purpose of attacking the person whether for revenge, robbery, insult or even just hate, then I am guilty of assault and battery and nothing else. (Well... robbery, maybe.)
But if the reaosn I am a attacking them is solely because they are GAY (for example), my attack is aimed at more than just the PERSON. I am sending a message to the ENITRE sub-group of society that they belong to that they are not wlecome, and they may face attack as well. In that way the single attack is more like an act of terrorism than merely a single act of assualt (or vadalism, murder, etc...) Hate crime legislation recognizes that a crime can have more than just one victim. There the victim that hamred, and the rest of the group that is terrorized/intimidated/whatever.
The OTHER thing it does is allow the FBI to get involved in the investigation. This prevents a local podunk sherriff, elected by a bunch of podunk rednecks, from turning a blind eye to this kind of behavior due to his own prejudices. (This was partiucularly relevant in the deep south, back when lynching and cross-burning was more common - many times, local lawmen were involved in the activity!)
SO it's not about how you feel, or how you think. You're entiteld tio your opinoion, and I know there's no shortage of people I hate, so I'm not going to judge you on that basis. In fact I am vehemently opposed to thought-police type stuff, and in fact SUPPORT hate SPEECH being protected by the 1st ammendment - It's the easiest way to identify the ignorant after all! ;) The legislation is about recognizing that crimes against (gays, blacks, jews, muslims, etc...) are about more than just the ONE IMMEDIATE VICTIM of the crime.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. For such a brief response, you managed to fit a lot of good arguments in there!
But...I still think hate crimes laws legislate what a person is thinking, albeit what they're thinking during the commission of a crime (or leading up to it, I guess).
Also, you've laid out the logic of the whole notion of an entire group being harmed by a single act of violence. I get that. But if we enact stiffer penalties for violence against a member of a group, isn't the group enjoying greater protection under the law than non-members of that group? How is that not the case?
I don't hate anyone. I'm 10000% in favor of equal rights for all. But there are already laws designed to protect all of us from violent crime, regardless of what kind of prejudices the offenders might have. (Granted, we're certainly not enforcing the existing laws well enough.)
For example, if you kill a man because you think he's about to kill you, it's different than if you kill him because you think he's the guy who's been sleeping with your wife.
Also, the thing often overlooked is the jurisdictional factor mentioned by Eddie. Too often in the past, local juries acquitted defendants because they thought the person killed or attacked "had it coming".
You've almost got me. I'm with you on the jurisdiction angle. That's a great point.
But if motive is already taken into consideration, isn't that enough? Why do we need laws that further expand on that?
I lean way Left, so I want to get on board with the hate crimes notion. I just can't get past the idea that our current laws (as opposed to enforcement) aren't adequate.
Also, doesn't "equal protection" mean that nobody should be denied protection? If there isn't any minority status involved, where someone's going to be the victim of a crime because of bigotry, then how would they ever get that protection in the first place? Why would it be needed? If a gay person were to kill a straight person just because he's straight, it's not as if the system is likely to give him any benefit of judgment, as opposed to the converse scenario.
If the argument is just that we shouldn't have laws that apply to one group and not another for any reason, then we shouldn't have laws about racial or sexual discrimination. They're much more likely to apply someone in a minority or generally disadvantaged group than white straight men, so they would have "greater protection". White, straight men aren't really being denied anything there, are they?
Re: your last point...
People discriminating based on race or whatever are not accused of discriminating because they hate those people. It's their actions that are being penalized, not what motivated them to commit those acts.
So I don't believe laws governing discrimination are comparable to hate crimes laws. If someone stabs a gay person because they hate gay people, we already have laws that penalize the action. He may hate all gay people, but he only stabbed one.
Should he also face a penalty for hating all the other gay people, even though he did nothing to them? If the answer is yes, then isn't that outlawing hate?
Believe me, I want to get on board with hate crimes legislation! I just need the idea to make sense to me.
Hate is outlawed already, depending on how it's conveyed. You can't burn a cross on someone's front lawn, I believe. That judgment was based on intimidation, which is very much the same thing as the wider effect of a violent and prejudicial act against someone of a particular group. You can hate someone all you like, but as soon as you express that in a way that sends a threatening message, your free speech rights no longer apply.
As to your question about PROTECTION. In a legal sense, I tend think of PROTECTION more as shielding someone from punnishment. So... you might have age of (sexual) consent laws, but give SPECIAL PROTECTION to someone vilating them if they're married to the person, just as an example. Or like the PROTECTION given to cannibis users if they have (*ahen*) a valid medical issue that they use it for. In those cases the sub-groups are given special legal PROTECTIONS. Or American Indian Shamans using Peyote in religious rituals. There is an otherwise illegal activity that gets special PROTECTION.
In the case of hate crimes, the groups in question do not recieve any newlegal protection. The can be homosexual, but still cannot molest underaged boys, fo example. (Despite what Bill O'Rielly tells you.) No activity that is otherwsie illegal is given any special PROTECTION (from prosecution) in THIS legislation.
Another way to look at protection is security. But there's no new secutriy introduced either. We're not putting cmeras outside the houses of gays (or jews, blacks, etc...) or installing gov't provided alarm systems or anything like that. (No DHS body-guards! LOL.)
I'm just going to fall back on the 'multiple victims' argument. If I'm gay and my gay-hating neighbor burns down the house of some OTHER gay in the neighborhood, I'M still the victim of a crime, even if he doesn;t even know I'm gay. I've been sent a message - namely, "You're in trouble if we find out you're gay!"
I do agree that we needn't limit it to certain groups, but that politics. I'd prefer to see it written more generally. If someone hates gingers, for example (Erick Cartman in South Park anyone?) than their motives could indicate a hate crime, even if the group is not on the lists. That can make for some real slippery slopes though, so instead we identify groups. That's mainly to create a clearer burden of proof in court.
And maybe someone else can answer this, but how specific is it? Does it say "Jews, Muslims and Hindu's" or just "on the basis of religion," for example? Is it really protecting any specific identified groups, or does it only recognize broad motives? I thougt it just said "on basis of race, religion, ethnicity, seual orientation, etc..." Rather than ID certain specific groups. Just curious.
I and others have challenged them time and time again to present a logical argument, and they simply cannot.
But they also realize that nothing will bring back the strict seperation of church and state faster than an outright admission that our laws are (or should be) based on everything the uber-christians think is icky. (We've tried puritanism and, much like their alledged criticism of liberalism, IT JUST DOESN'T WORK.)